Free A Late Divorce by A. B. Yehoshua Page A

wants you to call your wife.”
    My murderer looks at me sharply.
    â€œThank you but the name is Kedmi.”
    â€œYou better finish with him soon, he has to go eat lunch.”
    Everybody wants to give orders.
    â€œI heard you. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with him.”
    I continue the questioning. He begins to lose patience he’s worried about missing his meal the smell of food drifts up the corridor the clink of dishes but I press on relentlessly if suddenly he gets hungry and is short with the prosecution he’ll be eating his meals in prison for the rest of his life.
    Finally I’m done. I’m getting hungry too. We stand facing each other. Did he or didn’t he? God knows. But I have to be tough with him to spring him from here.
    â€œDo you need anything? Is there anything that you’d like?”
    He thinks it over and asks me to arrange to get him out for the night of the seder he wants to be with his parents they’ll be lonely without him.
    He’s too much. Behind that hard-nosed exterior he’s so innocent I could plotz. He’s barely been in jail for three months and already he wants a vacation.
    â€œForget it. But maybe you could invite your parents to have the seder here with you in prison. It will be an unforgettable experience for them to hear some rapist sing the Four Questions.”
    I begin to hum the tune to myself.
    His fists ball in anger. Did he or didn’t he? Meanwhile it’s my duty to defend him as well and as cunningly as I can.
    â€œYou don’t believe me,” he whispers hopelessly his eyes growing red.
    An actor in the bargain.
    â€œOf course I do. Leave it to me, you’ll see that everything will be all right. Now go eat.”
    I hurry out past rows of prisoners in gray uniforms murderers thieves terrorists each holding a plate and a spoon. I should eat here myself sometime and see what the food is like. There’s no one in the office I head straight for the telephone. My mother is right I shouldn’t have gotten involved. Ya’el. Her father is up. He doesn’t want me to go by myself. It’s immoral to send me in his name white he begs off. He has to talk to her or at least to be there with me.
    â€œFine. I’m not going. I’m chucking the whole business. Do what you please. Now it’s morality. Do you know what morality is? Do you? It’s a pebble in somebody’s shoe. I’ve had it! I’m tearing up the papers I drew up and going back to the office. There’s enough work for me there. I’m jumpy and I’m hungry. In a minute I’ll eat the dog’s vitamins and start to bark.”
    I could always get the better of her by quietly beginning to rave. They’re used to giving in to hysteria. When Asa was a little boy he’d lie flailing his arms and legs on the floor and the whole family would kneel in homage.
    All right all right. She’ll talk to her father. Maybe she’ll go herself tomorrow. I’m right. It’s best for me to go first. I should just be careful.
    At the gate I’m stopped and sent back to have my exit card stamped. Getting in is easier than getting out. I have to waste fifteen minutes looking for the clerk with the stamp. Meanwhile the head warden gets hold of me a sly old bugger who has this ironic thing with lawyers. “What’s the matter with you people? You’re not helping us to solve the overcrowding here. Where are your golden tongues? Come, let me show you some drawings made by one of our high-security prisoners. They’re absolutely marvelous.”
    It isn’t easy to shake him off.
    Then down from the mountain from the forest to the sea I’ll zip through the bay area past the refinery driving thou art my comfort my desire my only love. I hug the curves of the-wounded-the-quarried-mountain road silently racing the cable cars that pass over my head with gravel for the big cement